Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I was recently given a little advice by someone from a forum I used to frequent about how to quickly obtain large amounts of Japanese CDs. Basically, put in vague searches on Yahoo! Japan Auctions and trudge your way through the results until you find large, cheap lots of stuff. Well...I took that advice, and here are the results.

^This is the package itself. It cost $80 to ship...because it weighed about 9 pounds and had to be shipped EMS. XD (sorry about the big black splotches - I'd rather not have internet pedophiles stealing my personal info :P)

^This is the box upon opening the lid. Everything is packed nicely, thanks to either Ohta or the seller. I'll give the credit to Ohta since he's a cool dude and bid on the auction for me, haha.

^Here's all the CDs unpacked and stacked up. 55 in all.

^And sorted in stacks. The left stack is CDs I didn't have already. Middle stack is CDs I already had. Right stack is doubles from within the box.

Here's a list of the contents of each stack:

New (34):

Morning Musume - Manatsu no Kousen (Original 8CM Release)

Taiyou to Ciscomoon - Magic of Love

Ichii Sayaka in CUBIC CROSS - Shitsuren LOVE Song

Heike Michiyo - Murasaki Shikibu

Morning Musume - Single Medley ~Hawaiian~

The Douyou Pops 1 - Christmas to Fuyu no Uta Shuu

Morning Musume - Best! Morning Musume 1 (SEALED)

Morning Musume - Koi no Dance Site (SEALED)

Pucchi Moni - BABY! Koi ni KNOCK OUT!

Pucchi Moni - Chokotto LOVE

Pucchi Moni - Seishun Jidai 1.2.3! / Baisekou Daiseikou!

MiniMoni - MiniMoni Hinamatsuri!

MiniMoni - MiniMoni Jankenpyon! (SEALED)

MiniMoni - Minihamuzu no Ai no Uta (SEALED)

MiniMoni - MiniMoni Telephone! Rin Rin Rin (SEALED)

Tanpopo - Tanpopo

Tanpopo - Last Kiss

Tanpopo - BE HAPPY Koi no Yajirobee

Melon Kinenbi - Amai Anata no Aji

Melon Kinenbi - Saa~ Koibito ni Narou

Melon Kinenbi - Kokuhaku Kinenbi

Melon Kinenbi - Natsu no Yoru wa Danger!

Coconuts Musume - Jounetsu Yuki Miraisen

Coconuts Musume - Watashi mo 'I LOVE YOU'

Coconuts Musume - DANCE & CHANCE

Coconuts Musume - Tokonatsu Musume

7nin Matsuri - Summer Reggae! Rainbow!

3nin Matsuri - Chu! Natsu Party

Sexy 8 - Shiawase Desu Ka?

Odoru 11 - Shiawase Kyouryuu Ondo

Happy 7 - Shiawase Beam! Suki Suki Beam!

Akagumi 4 - Akai Nikkichou (SEALED)

Kiiro 5 - Kiiroi Osora de BOOM BOOM BOOM (SEALED)

Aoiro 7 - Aoi Sports Car no Otoko

Already Had (16):

Fujimoto Miki - Sotto Kuchizukete Gyutto Dakishimete

Nakazawa Yuko - Kuyashi Namida Porori

Nakazawa Yuko - Shanghai no Kaze

Nakazawa Yuko - Futari Gurashi

10nin Matsuri - Dancing! Natsu Matsuri

Morning Musume - Mr. Moonlight ~Ai no Big Band~

Morning Musume - The Peace!

Morning Musume - Renai Revolution 21

Morning Musume - Koko ni Iruzee!

Morning Musume - DO IT NOW!

Tanpopo - Oujisama to Yuki no Yoru

Tanpopo - Otome Past ni Kandou

Country Musume - Hajimete no Happy Birthday

Country Musume - Koibito wa Kokoro no Ouendan

Country Musume - Iroppoi Onna ~Sexy Baby~

V/A - Pucchi Best 2 (SEALED)

Doubles (5):

7nin Matsuri - Summer Reggae! Rainbow!

Kiiro 5 - Kiiroi Osora de BOOM BOOM BOOM

MiniMoni - MiniMoni Telephone! Rin Rin Rin

MiniMoni - Minihamuzu no Ai no Uta

Morning Musume - Koi no Dance Site

The auction ended at 8000yen (about $80). With Ohta's middleman fees and the seller's shipping fee, the total without shipping to the US was $120. Add in shipping, and it comes out to $200. That's a little less than $4 per CD, and a little over $2 per if you don't include shipping. All of them are releases from 2002 or before, so I suppose that's not quite as good of a deal as if they were stuff from 2003 to present...but they're all in good condition, and I can sell/trade the ones I already have (which I'll be doing very soon - I already had a decent-size pile of stuff to get rid of before this monstrosity arrived XD). I'll most likely be doing that in a thread over at H!O, by the way - I'll make note of that here as well, for those who don't regular the forums and may want to make me an offer I can't refuse. ;)

All in all, I'd say this is a pretty good way to get a running start on your H!P collection (or, if you're already well on your way, to give it a quick boost and get some leverage to work with in the H!P selling/trading community). It's obviously a fairly large chunk of cash to drop in one shot, but I think it's worth it for anyone who enjoys collecting H!P stuff, or who wants to start doing so.

Quick Thoughts:- With the DEF.DIVA Rakuten single, now all I've got left is the GAM one...which is likely going to set me back $60-$70. >.< - Maeda Yuki is absolutely incredible. I can't wait to get ahold of more of her singles. - Platinum 9 DISC is great, as expected. - The EC Grad photobook is bawwtastic, haha. - Only 2 Momusu Single Vs left before I've got all of them. : 3 Complete list here.- cfb

Monday, April 6, 2009

My previous collection pics post is pretty outdated now, so I feel it's time for a new one.

Big Picture

CDs

Single Vs/PV Collections^^This picture also contains the "Wall of BAWWW", which is a bunch of pictures my friend drew of me on post-it notes, making fun of how much I bawwwww about Miki. Anyone who knows me will understand the humor in this, haha.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Broomhead over at true life seek made a recent post about people posting pictures of the stuff they buy. Since that's pretty much all I do on this blog anymore, I suppose it's appropriate to respond.

First of all, I have to establish that I have, for the most part, lost interest in blogging. Were it not for my desire to keep track of all the H!P stuff I buy, this blog would most likely have been dead for months now. Shortly before I stopped posting seriously, I came to realize that the only reason I blogged was for the recognition that came from getting covered on IW and the ensuing comments, and that just felt like a shameless, cheap reason to continue posting...thus me no longer writing "real" posts. As such, the reason I post my "GETS" on here isn't really to keep my blog active, although it may have served that purpose at one point in time.

I primarily post the H!P stuff I buy for my own personal records. Monthly posts of what I purchase give me an idea of how my buying habits vary over time, and keeping a complete list of all the H!P merchandise I've acquired gives me an easy way to keep track of how many CDs, DVDs, and photobooks I have. Also, I'm proud of my collection, and it feels nice to pull up my merch list and click the links, seeing the progress of my ongoing quest to "buy 'em all".

Now the question arises of...why even have this blog anymore? I could easily keep track of my purchase history through some other means. Of course, I love to show off my collection (what can I say? I'm an attention whore when it comes to collecting)...but I also show my support for the idols I love through buying their merchandise, and posting my purchases on a public blog lets me show that love and support to others in the community. I would like to think that there are people somewhere who get enjoyment from seeing the things I buy, and I originally started posting my GETS here for that specific reason...but lately that has become secondary to those reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I suppose this means that I essentially think of Obnoxious Wota as a non-contributor to the H!P blogging community. I've kind of drifted away from other bloggers over the last several months, so I guess I'm not too concerned as to whether or not this blog continues to tie me to them in some way. Say what you may, but I don't feel like I'm truly connected to the community anymore, other than through the few people I still talk to occasionally over AIM/MSN...and honestly, I'm not sure if I want to be. This is something I'm still trying to think my way through, so maybe I'll change my mind and jump back into the community, but I've got my doubts. Either way, I'm now totally off-topic from why I originally started writing this post, so I'll go ahead and cut myself off here.